[dsjoerg]

you win the prize for asking the right question. the answers are like with AI, where once it's done in a certain domain, then that's not AI anymore. that is, with visual programming, once it's done in a particular domain, people don't think it's programming anymore.

the big examples i have in mind are: * spreadsheets -- very visual, everything's in a grid. the relationships are spatial. * electronic music -- people lay out their various effects in a flowchart format and chain them from one to another * video games -- consider a game like RimWorld. you're clicking on all kinds of things and specifying what you want done with them. the behavior of the actors in the environment are modified by your specifications.

So, it's all in various optimized subdomains. As it should be!

[kig]

And who could forget the most successful visual programming tool of them all: Photoshop. A relatively simple visual programming language for putting together programs that generate images of various kinds.

Most of the things you do are achieved through a visual programming environment specialised for that particular task. Maybe text-based source files in complex directory trees, managed through a structured text editor with UI composition helpers represents one kind of specialised visual programming environment as well.

[majewsky]

Sooo... Minecraft is a visual programming tool, then?

[jimsmart]

Well, in light of the fact that someone built an emulator of the 6502 processor in Minecraft [0], it would be difficult to argue that it's a not visual programming tool! (of some kind at least ;)

[0] https://www.theverge.com/2012/5/21/3032765/minecraft-emulate...